Major Awards:

Cannes 1989 -
Best Actress: Meryl Streep

Entertainment Reviews:

New York Times - 11/11/1988
"...Another stunning performance by Meryl Streep....She reaches for, and achieves, the high notes..."

Los Angeles Times - 11/11/1988
"...Streep and Neill are the film's perfectly matched thoroughbreds....It is a sort of epic mosaic of national character....Schepisi builds his mosaic with Australian faces and voices crisscrossing every social class and occupatio..."

Product Description:

Meryl Streep and Sam Neill star in this documentary style film adaptation of the true story of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, an Australian couple who lived the nightmare of losing their infant daughter during a family camping trip. When Lindy (Streep) spies a dingo nearby, authorities launch a frantic search, but all they find is a torn, bloodied garment. The press, distressed by the mother's seeming "lack of emotion," and suspicious of her strict Seventh Day Adventist religious beliefs, begin to accuse her of murdering the baby. The sentiment against her begins to grow, and soon the whole continent is talking about the case in a malicious witch hunt. Despite the lack of evidence, Lindy Chamberlain is imprisoned; although investigators eventually reexamine her story, the damage is done: the innocent mother's relationship with her husband has been irreparably destroyed and she has spent over three years in prison for a crime she did not commit. This painful portrayal of the power of public opinion and political and emotional persecution is captured with steely intensity by Streep, she is captivating as the much-maligned victim of social injustice who is bolstered by her strong religious faith and stoic demeanor.